Basil and Technology
by Eupa
Summary: Mobile phonaholics are driving Basil further towards the brink of insanity, so he bans all mobile phones from his hotel. Of course, chaos is destined to follow. Warning: Don't try this at home. Or, if you do, record it!


**A/N: Fawlty Towers is amazing. It's hilariously hysterical, dramatically daft and wondrously written. **

**This fanfic is none of the above.**

**Summary: Can be seen under the blue name you just clicked on to get here. Yanked through time and space to the age of the mobile telecommunications device. **

"Madam?" Basil sighed impatiently, waving a small slip of paper in the general direction of the woman in her late thirties, crouched over a mobile phone with an expression of intense concentration on her face. "Madam?"

The lack of response from the customer in question irked Basil, as many things in this world have the ability to do. But highest among the things that a customer could do to set off to the worst possible start in Basil's personal books were the following: not paying bills on time, making the aforementioned Basil await their cooperation for over three seconds, and using a mobile phone.

This woman had somehow managed to do two out of three. And Basil had the suspicion that if he remained standing there much longer, his feet could sprout roots and sink into the carpet. How could he chase the Spanish imbecile around with feet rooted to the carpet?

Repeating his earlier sigh with excessively dramatic emphasis, Basil rested one elbow on the counter which, all things considered, was significantly too small for him, and glared. This glare was the sort to turn customers' knees to mush, and make them wonder if the fires of hell were real after all. It gave the impression of one thousand years' bad karma all building up in the mind of one Basil Fawlty, who was about to explode into a demon of ultimate damnation and yell at them incessantly until their ears imploded. Owch.

"MADAM!" His shout certainly had the desired effect, as the woman leapt three feet into the air, and proceeded to look as though she might be on the brink of a heart attack.

"I'm sorry; we don't take top-up vouchers as a form of currency in this establishment." He continued to half-shout at the woman, who had now dropped her phone and visibly shuddered at the glare of never-ending loathing delivered by the hotel manager.

As she bent to pick up the offending gadget, Basil rammed the bill directly under her nose, now changing his glower to one of sheer contempt. "In normal English please, the management does not use text language in our books."

The woman flushed, and picked up the pen hesitantly.

"Yes, that's how it works." Basil's voice oozed sarcasm like mud on an Amazonian river bank. "Sorry we don't have a _keyboard_ for you." He spat the word as though it had not only mortally wounded his pride, cast aspersions on his manhood and insulted his mother, but had also pilfered his credit card details and bought 20 000 pairs of gold-plated socks.

The poor customer was now such a shamed, pulsating shade of red that, had there been any orange or green lamps in the vicinity, she might have quite conceivably been mistaken for a traffic light. Scribbling in earnest, she seized her handbag and small suitcase and almost ran to the door, as though fearing for her life.

Basil, returning briefly to his correspondence, had heard the door slam before he noticed her phone was still lying on the counter.

"Bloody idiots, leaving their possessions all over- Manuel! Manuel!"

There was a pause as the summons reached the ears of the small Spaniard, who burst out from the kitchen with great enthusiasm.

"Meester Fawlty, Meester Fawlty! You call; I here!" A grin on his face, the Spanish waiter appeared in front of the desk, and Basil's icy glare did not make that brave, foreign smile even twitch.

A fourth thing that had the ability to irk Basil to the edge of a mental breakdown? Cheery foreigners. The very worst kind, in Basil's experience.

"Take this to that woman who's just gone. She left it here." He gestured to the phone with a pen, and looked back at the receipts he was checking.

Manuel, poor innocent fool, felt his grin slowly slide off his face as, yet again his boss' words reverberated in his ears, echoing down to his eardrum, then through the nerve endings to his brain, and got vaguely translated. Rather inexpertly. And, as is often the case with communication between Fawlty and Manuel, the latter misunderstood and the former fumed.

The brave, bold and incredibly inane Spanish man nodded, hoping that if he kept grinning like a complete idiot, Mr Fawlty would explain again. This fell flat on its face, and so the man went on what his brain had informed him _might_ have been the message Basil had been trying to convey.

So, he grabbed the pen from Mr Fawlty and went running out of the front door.

"You leave thiiiis! I come, return it to you!"

Swearing and muttering something about the incompetence he had to deal with, Basil careered out of the doors after the oaf.

Emerging from the bottom of the stairs, having witnessed the entire fiasco, Sybil Fawlty sighed and picked up the phone, pausing for a moment before following at a far more dignified pace.

Manuel skidded across the car park, pen held high like a proud runner with the Olympic Torch.

"You leave p-"

The remainder of his words were cut off by Basil lunging at his legs in a blind, gangly rugby tackle. The two crashed onto the tarmac and began to scrabble for the pen, as Basil tried to retrieve his favourite biro, and Manuel valiantly attempted to return it to the "owner".

The inadvertent cause of this incident could only watch in horror as the hotel manager attempted to strangle the Spanish waiter, who seemed to be trying to sell her his pen.

Making a supreme and well-practiced effort to ignore the brawl going on in the middle of the car park, Sybil approached the customer. "I'm so sorry; I think you left this at reception."

Surprised by the sharp contrast in customer service, the woman could only dumbly nod and mutter an appreciative thanks as Sybil turned back to her husband, smile replaced with unadulterated venom directed at both men.

Basil decided this was no time to stand up to his wife, and gave Manuel a hearty shove in her direction and legged it back to the hotel, his long legs covering greater distances than many would think physically possible.

Manuel shrieked in an undignified manner as he was pushed, and, after recovering a modicum of decorum, began to apologise in halting and strained English, backing away slowly, before the anger in Sybil's eyes became too much for the poor waiter, and he too fled.

With a swift smile to a few nearby customers, Sybil began her stately progress back into the hotel.

"Basil!"

The hotel manager took refuge in the kitchen, ducking under a table.

"Mr Fawlty?" The cook blinked. "What's-"

Sybil crashed through the door (or at least seemed to) and Terry obediently shut his mouth.

"Who were you talking to Terry?" Her voice was ice. Or possibly liquid nitrogen, as it possessed the uncanny ability to turn men's insides to ice as well.

"N-No one Mrs Fawlty." The chef stuttered, unconsciously taking a step backwards.

"I heard voices."

"Well-"

"Who were you talking to Terry?" Her voice diffused with anger, which was somehow worse than the freezing tone of a few seconds prior.

"J-Jus-Just the cat, Mrs Fawlty." Terry stammered, gesturing to the cat, which by some holy mercy was still in the room.

By some other great mercy, Sybil believed him. "Well then, if you see that idiot husband of mine, tell him I was looking for him."

Without another word, she swept out of the kitchen and the door slammed behind her. Terry shuddered, and Basil crept out from under the table, wincing as he cracked his head on the polished underside.

"Close escape there Mr Fawlty." Terry smirked.

"Shut up Terry." Basil snapped, slipping out of the kitchen via the dining room this time.

Creeping cautiously across the lobby, Basil's eyes zoned in on Polly, who had his back to him, behind the reception desk.

At first he thought she was talking to herself, but as he drew nearer, he saw the tell-tale shine of a mobile phone next to her ear.

Expression black with fury, Basil rounded the desk, and Polly stopped talking abruptly.

Wordlessly, Basil held out a hand for the offending article, and Polly sensed he wasn't in the mood to argue, and so complied.

Snapping it shut, Basil reached for the safe key and locked it safely away. Infernal contraptions, he'd always thought. And he would maintain that view for eternity, as his stubborn personality demanded.

It was later on, when Basil finally entered the dining room, for once almost entirely full of customers, although their satisfaction was far less likely to be true, that things really came to a head.

Having just received an earful from his wife, having failed in his strangulation of a certain Spaniard and having been forced to endure the inane and tedious complaints of no less than _three_ guests in the space of forty minutes, Basil Fawlty the infamously ill-tempered was not particularly chuffed. Not even vaguely in fact. His mood was such a transposed version of chuffed that he could scarcely recall what the words chuffed, elated, thrilled or happy meant.

The first guest encounter had been with the phoneaholic who Basil had terrified and all that had followed. Namely Sybil's tirade that left Basil's ear bleeding, or at least very distinctly scarred.

The second had been a scruffy-faced man with dull blonde hair that looked as though it had not seen the light of day for at least twenty seven years. Apparently his room did not contain the three different newspapers he had requested. Basil did not see why anyone would want three newspapers; they all had the same news didn't they? And considering the man had requested The Sun, The Daily Mirror and The Daily Star, he was even less inclined to "trouble himself" and get the man's papers. What did the man think he was? The manager of a respectable hotel or a trade union leader?

The third had been with a pompous individual whose nose was raised to such high altitudes that even in the heights of summer Basil fancied he could see icicles forming. His breakfast had been twenty three minutes late that morning. Didn't the man realise he had other things to do with his time? He was running a hotel, dammit! Things had to be done, and that man's breakfast was Terry's responsibility in any case. Basil despised taking responsibility for other people's mistakes even more than for his own. Which were mostly not really his fault anyway, in his opinion.

As a result of the aforementioned instances, Basil was livid. And ready to row, argue and generally abuse his customers to the best of his rather incredible ability.

As the doors swung shut behind him with a dull thud, Basil froze.

Looking around at the various tables, Basil's face began to turn pink, then puce, then maroon, bordering on purple.

The entire room was buzzing, whirring and vibrating as various customers typed, received and blogged in even measure. Basil felt the urge to somehow induce a power surge in all of their mobiles. That would make them think twice. Not that they'd have time.

Manuel noticed the look on Mr Fawlty's face and ducked into the kitchen. He knew that look all too well. It was usually followed by attempted murder.

"If I could have your attention ladies and gentlemen!" Basil spat venomously, unnoticed by the masses busy typing at the speed of light.

"IF YOU DON'T MIND!" His voice echoed around the room, and all paused in their actions. "I'm sorry, you're all banned."

Expressions of incredulous displeasure burst out across the room. "What?"

"We don't allow those in here."

"What?"

Basil sighed and confronted the most questioning of those surrounding him. "Hand it over please." There was no real politeness in his tone.

"Why should I?" The indignant woman demanded. "Who are you anyway?"

Basil glared. "I am the management madam."

She scoffed.

Basil's eyes narrowed to dangerous proportions. "Madam, as much as it pains me to inconvenience you-" his tone suggested otherwise. "I have got certain standards to uphold in this establishment."

"How are mobile phones impacting on your establishment?" The woman refused to budge.

Basil drew himself up to his somewhat intimidating height, and gazed down scornfully at her. "I wouldn't expect you to understand Madam, that's why I run this hotel myself and do not delegate such a task to the masses."

"I say!" Several newer guests gasped at this outburst.

The major piped up from his table. "It doesn't matter Fawlty, you can have mine instead! Here!" He waved his phone around as he rose, and promptly slipped over, to be caught by another guest. "Oh err, thank you!"

Basil held up a hand. "Not now major."

"No, no no-Fawlty, you can have this." He pushed his phone at Basil, who ignored it. "Don't know how it works anyway."

"What do you mean you don't know how it works?" Basil turned his attention to the elderly veteran. "You were just using it Major."

"Oh, not really Fawlty." The Major grinned. "Just pressing buttons, old boy. My wife always used to say I could press all the wrong buttons."

"Yes, I noticed when you tried to watch television. Bloody thing's still stuck in black and white..." Basil muttered out of the corner of his mouth.

"This hardly matters." The woman waved a hand. "We're not doing anything wrong are we?"

"So you don't consider disturbing the peace to be a real crime madam?" Basil sneered. "I hear some people end up in front of magistrates for it, but maybe that was some other police trial."

"I don't appreciate your tone!" The woman's voice rose.

Basil glowered. "Nor I yours madam. Now, if you don't mind..." Without waiting for a reply, he snatched the phone from her grasp, then proceeding to retrieve all others in the room.

The voices of protest were cut off as Basil stormed out and swung open the safe, throwing all the phones casually in with a total disregard for their wellbeing.

Within two hours, several posters had appeared around the hotel.

_**MOBILE PHONES ARE PROHIBITED.**_

As though to underline this point, the poster also showed several pictures of mobile phones, all struck through with red crosses.

After all, Basil wasn't completely sure all the imbeciles in his hotel were literate. Or at least not in English, which he classed as synonymous with illiteracy.

Bloody phoneaholics.


End file.
